Tag Archives: Energy

The White House held a “Solar Summit” Thursday, continuing to promote subsidies for solar panels just days after a new nonpartisan government report showed restrictions of drilling on federal lands.

The Energy Department announced another $15 million in “solar market pathways” to fund local governments’ use of solar energy. Further, the administration announced at the summit plans for a “Capital Solar Challenge,” directing federal agencies, military bases and other federally subsidized buildings to use solar power. Continue reading →

On Wednesday, the New York Times published a very nice account of a speech President Vladimir Putin gave to a group of the Russian elite in the Grand Kremlin Palace. Reported by on-the-scene correspondents, it was free of the usual filtering that takes place in Washington or most of the country’s newsrooms:

In an emotional address steeped in years of resentment and bitterness at perceived slights from the West, Mr. Putin made it clear that Russia’s patience for post-Cold War accommodation, much diminished of late, had finally been exhausted. Speaking to the country’s political elite in the Grand Kremlin Palace, he said he did not seek to divide Ukraine any further, but he vowed to protect Russia’s interests there from what he described as Western actions that had left Russia feeling cornered.

This isn’t exactly the picture John Kerry and Angela Merkel are giving us. According to them, President Putin is “in another world, “behaving in 19th century fashion,” “completely isolated” and “has a huge price to pay.” Close your eyes, however, and you are listening to Hitler lamenting the humiliations visited upon Germany by the Versailles Treaty. They said the same thing about him. You know what happened next. Continue reading →

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough discussed with NBC News’ David Gregory the administration’s foot-dragging on the Keystone XL pipeline. The Sunday interview came in the wake of the State Department’s latest report on the project, which again found no good reason to block construction of an oil pipeline from western Canada to Steele City, Neb.

The chat produced this rich quote from Mr. McDonough on President Barack Obama’s refusal to approve the privately funded project thus far: “He’s been very clear that he’s going to insulate this process from politics.”

But politics are indeed driving the president’s Keystone inaction, thanks largely to climate change and environmental alarmists. How else to explain the more than five-year wait for approval of the Keystone pipeline, a project that requires no tax money, is shovel ready and loaded with good-paying jobs? The State Department’s Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, released Jan. 31, concludes: “During construction, proposed Project spending would support approximately 42,100 jobs (direct, indirect, and induced), and approximately $2 billion in earnings throughout the United States.” Continue reading →

Members of President Barack Obama’s team made it clear this past weekend that Obama will use part of his State of the Union speech Tuesday night to send a message to Congress.

“When American jobs and livelihoods depend on getting something done,” senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said, “he will not wait for Congress.” Other members of Obama’s camp used similar language during appearances on Sunday’s talk shows.

By “Congress,” the president means Republicans, particularly in the House, who have not been keen on his progressive agenda. Obama laid out big plans during this speech a year ago, following his re-election, but things like stricter gun control and immigration reform ended up on high center. Continue reading →

Environmentalist suggested EPA head was lying when she told reporters coal would remain viable under new standards

by CJ Ciaramella

Emails between the Sierra Club and the EPA produced through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit show the green group and senior officials at the nation’s top environmental enforcer met and corresponded frequently about the agency’s work on new coal regulations.

The EPA published its long-awaited New Source Performance Standards for new coal-fired plants on Wednesday, four months after the agency announced their creation.

The EPA has repeatedly said the regulations on coal-fired power plants will not be a death blow to the industry. However, the agency was working closely behind the scenes with the Sierra Club, an environmental organization that was pushing the agency to adopt standards that would be impossible for power plants to meet. Continue reading →

It is said that those who respect the law and enjoy sausage, should not see how either are made. Too often the farm bill is exhibit A for this adage. Too often such bills include a little something for everyone, or a lot of taxpayer cash for a privileged few. Such legislation picks the pocket of the taxpayer, and distorts the marketplace.

Part of the farm bill is invariably an energy provision which again all too often is simply a grab bag of taxpayer provided cash for energy or chemical projects that managed to lobby hard for the taxpayer-provided benefits. But it is doubtful that such programs actually benefit the nation as a whole. The Senate’s version of the farm bill is sadly yet another Exhibit A in wasteful spending and its energy provisions are simply more of the same.

The bipartisan House farm bill is different from the usual farm bill. It isn’t perfect, but it is a big step in the right direction. Continue reading →

Deception: There he goes again. The president is taking credit for an economic recovery that isn’t happening and a surge in oil production he’s had nothing to do with. If he can’t be honest, it’s up to us to set the record straight.

While touring an Ohio steel mill Thursday, President Obama talked about jobs and the economy bouncing back.

He prattled on about factories “reopening their doors” and businesses “hiring new workers.” He even went so far as to imply that his administration has “been trying” to “rebuild a new foundation for growth and prosperity to protect ourselves from future crises.”

Meanwhile, in the real world, the U.S. economy continues to struggle under his watch. Continue reading →

Government should speed oil infrastructure improvements, a key piece in America’s manufacturing resurgence.

A bright spot in the U.S.’s sluggish economic recovery has been historic growth in North American energy production, courtesy of oil and natural gas from shale and Canadian crude from oil sands. The boom has not only reduced American dependence on foreign oil but has encouraged “insourcing,” the return of manufacturing to the U.S., as employers take advantage of low energy costs.

Infrastructure growth is crucial to sustaining this manufacturing resurgence, and government must do its part. Yet as energy discoveries have transformed U.S. oil production, the pipeline and road infrastructure needed to bring petroleum to market are groaning under government negligence, slowing growth in the U.S. and Michigan. Continue reading →

Gas prices are significantly higher and likely to go higher still, which could make this the most expensive summer at the pump in five years.

The average price is now $3.67, and Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for GasBuddy.com, predicts there’s at least a 50% chance gas could top the $3.79 a gallon high for the year reached in February.

The rise in crude oil prices is one of the major factors in the recent gas price run-up, since oil prices end up being passed onto consumers. And while retail gas prices have risen quickly, they haven’t kept pace with wholesale prices on the commodities markets — meaning it’s virtually certain you’ll pay more at the pump, and soon.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s driving the recent gas spike, and what drivers should be worried about later this summer: Continue reading →

CBS News – A landmark federal study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, shows no evidence that chemicals from the natural gas drilling process moved up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a western Pennsylvania drilling site, the Department of Energy told The Associated Press.

After a year of monitoring, the researchers found that the chemical-laced fluids used to free gas trapped deep below the surface stayed thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water, geologist Richard Hammack said.

Although the results are preliminary — the study is still ongoing — they are a boost to a natural gas industry that has fought complaints from environmental groups and property owners who call fracking dangerous. Continue reading →

President Obama’s call for the EPA to impose new regulations on coal-fired power plants was a giveaway to the environmental lobby at the expense of the American worker. By crusading against coal, Obama is willfully hurting the very working-class Americans around whom he structured his reelection campaign and endangering the economic recovery he continues to promise.

Coal is mined in 25 states and is responsible for over 550,000 American jobs, most of them blue-collar. It’s also the cheapest source of electricity available — 22 of the 25 power plants with the lowest operating costs in the U.S. are fueled by coal — which is a major reason why Americans enjoy some of the lowest electricity costs of any free-market economy. Continue reading →

Regulation: No longer the stuff of science fiction, a little-noticed change in energy-efficiency requirements for appliances could lead to government controlling the power used in your home and how you set your thermostat.

In a seemingly innocuous revision of its Energy Star efficiency requirements announced June 27, the Environmental Protection Agency included an “optional” requirement for a “smart-grid” connection for customers to electronically connect their refrigerators or freezers with a utility provider.

That’s not how he put it, of course. Just the opposite. He said, “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society,” i.e. those not prepared to join him in embracing radical anti-fossil fuel policies.

Put another way, he meant forget about Congress. Congress has repeatedly rejected legislation to authorize what Mr. Obama announced yesterday he would do anyway, essentially by decree. For example, the administration backed a cap and trade bill in 2010. Designed to limit the use of coal and oil, it was so unpopular in that year’s overwhelmingly Democratic Congress that Majority Leader Harry Reid ultimately withdrew it. The issue was not overcoming a filibuster. Reid knew that the bill would have lost an up and down vote on the Senate floor. Continue reading →

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